For more on that story:
http://www.cnn.com/2015/12/17/us/laquan-mcdonald-video-records-comparison/
There have also been more killings by the Chicago Police Department. Quintonio LeGrier, 19, called police three times Dec. 26 to ask for help. During one of the calls, the dispatch operator hung up on the teen, who was later fatally shot by police. According to ABC News, audio of the 19-year-old's 911 calls made Dec. 26 were released late Monday by Chicago's Independent Police Review Authority, which is investigating both LeGrier's death and the death of his neighbor Bettie Jones. Jones, 55, was also shot and killed by police after she opened their apartment building door to let police in. Earlier that day, LeGrier called 911 asking that a police officer be sent to his address. The first call was made at 4:18 a.m., and the last call was made three minutes later.
"There's an emergency, can you send an officer?" LeGrier can be heard saying on one of the calls.
During one call, LeGrier didn't respond to the 911 operator's questions and the dispatcher hung up on the teen, ABC reports.
When the dispatcher asked the teen what was wrong, he responded, saying, "Someone is ruining my life."
ABC reports that LeGrier's father, Antonio LeGrier, called 911 at 4:24 a.m. and asked for an officer to be sent to the same address.
"My son has freaked out. I need an officer," Antonio LeGrier said on the call. "He's got a baseball bat in his hand right now."
accident and say that LeGrier was charging them when he was shot. According to autopsies by the Cook County medical examiner on both victims, LeGrier was shot six times and Jones, a mother of five, was shot once, ABC reports.
"Upon arrival, officers were confronted by a combative subject resulting in the discharging of the officer's weapon, fatally wounding two individuals," police said in a statement released shortly after the shooting.
But there is something more to the stories here. This post may not be related to LeGrier, but I felt it was essential to update you on what happened there. That story is important for the public to see. Now onto to the issue that I dearly wished to address.
Police dashcams. These devices were put into police vehicles in order to prevent instances like Laquan McDonald from happening. However, new evidence has risen to show why these events keep happening.
Police officers have been destroying their dashcams on purpose. Maintenance records reveal that Chicago police officers have been involved in routine destruction and sabotage of dashboard cameras and microphones. This troubling revelation sheds light on what happened the night of Oct. 20, 2014, when Officer Jason Van Dyke — who was recently released on bond after being charged with first-degree murder — shot and killed a 17-year-old black boy named Laquan McDonald. The incident was recorded by multiple police dash cameras, but many of them did not record audio, including Van Dyke's.
In Van Dyke's case, the reason for this is now clear: He'd intentionally made his camera not work. The 15-year veteran took the camera from his patrol car to the department's maintenance team in June 2014, three months after reporting it broken. Repairs were completed June 17. The next day, the camera was "suddenly" broken again. Then, on Oct. 8 — 12 days before Van Dyke killed McDonald — the maintenance team fixed it for a second time, citing "intentional damage" as the reason for its malfunction.
The night of Oct. 20, the same camera wasn't recording any audio. Investigators decided this was because the microphone hadn't been synced.
The camera's repeated breakdowns and failure to record sound appear to be part of a systematic issue in Chicago. Technicians have identified 90 cases between September 2014 and July 2015 where Chicago Police Department officers had actually hidden their dashcam mics in the glove compartment of their cars. While in 30 other instances, there was evidence that recording devices were "intentionally defeated" or not activated by police personnel, DNA Info reported.
Meanwhile, another audio recording — this time from a cellphone camera — played a key role in helping people understand the circumstances around 43-year-old Eric Garner's death in July 2014. "I can't breathe," Garner said, repeatedly, as police officers in Staten Island, New York, wrestled him to the ground and choked him to death.
Interim Chicago Police Supt. John Escalante responded to the revelations by formally reprimanding some officers, and by suspending others for up to three days. "To boil this down, the police department will not tolerate officers maliciously destructing equipment," police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi told DNA Info.
For more information
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jan/28/laquan-mcdonald-shooting-jason-van-dyke-dashcam-mic-destroyed-chicago-police
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